Monthly Archives: January 2018
More Plaintains
I have made a couple of Plaintains for Liz’s birthday present, I also made one for me with 3/4 length sleeves, with the steroids and Christmas I have put on rather a lot of weight, I needed to make something larger than my normal clothes, though the Plaintains hide quite a bit 🙂
I had the altered pattern with FBA for Liz already, luckily I actually managed to find it, then I just need to find the Jersey fabric, I used two different types of Jersey one is a cotton bought from eBay which was easy to work with but didn’t drape very well. The second one was is a viscose/rayon bought from Olympia last year surprisingly heavy and slippery. Not the best fabric when your left hand isn’t working quite as well as it could do. I mainly used the overlocker to complete bulk of the sewing, and the twin needle on the sewing machine for the hems.
This wasn’t my best work, I used a lot more pins than I would have normally and the hems weren’t quite as neat as they could be.
Musings update
Hello, we are still hoping to get back to Disney this year, but finding travel insurance is proving troublesome, mostly because the tumour is so unpredictable, what they don’t tell you is that with 6 weeks Radiotherapy everything is shifted over 3 weeks, you don’t start getting the side effects until week 3, hair loss, side effects continue another 3 weeks after treatment has finished, brain swelling, loss of use of left side again, not sure if we get to critical mass at 1 1/2 weeks or if I have to wait the full 3 weeks then back up other side. What they also don’t tell you is life isn’t like tv, i’m still waiting to do the fun stuff. You write a bucket list, which you can’t complete due to spending too much time at the hospital, which will only prolong your life maybe a couple of extra months if you are unlucky, you get shafted by scottish provident, because they can’t input dob correctly from proof of id. So called specialist travel insurance companies, won’t touch you if you want to go to USA, no we don’t want to go to Disney Land Paris, we want to go to our Disney World Florida, our happy place, so don’t even suggest it.
Chemo has messed with my bone marrow, so having regular blood tests 😦 and platelet transfusions 😦 😦 not sure how long bone marrow takes to recover, everyone is different. Waiting for Arnold marrow to kick in 🙂 My Dad’s family has a history of making too many platelets but not until into their 60s-70s so I have a little while to wait yet.
Hoping to get back to dressmaking soon, I have two tops cut out one of them is started, a forte top and another larger Plantain cut out but not started. When I got my overlocker, I thought, ‘why does it come with a pair of tweezers, who is going to want to use them to thread, just makes it more difficult’, turns out if you have a brain tumour and Shakey hands they help a lot. Though I wish I had spent a bit more money and got a self threading one, it seems every time at the moment when I want to use it I have to change the thread colour. Though I have made it slightly easier, the same as the sewing machine it has handy dandy diagrams inside, what it doesn’t tell you is which order to thread it in, so to get round that I have numbered up the thread spools.
I’m going to be 50 at the end of next month, so hoping side effects will be finished by then, including looking about 6 months pregnant. Steroids/chocolate. If I was going to have to grow ‘a life sucking parasite’, a baby would be preferable to a brain tumour, even at 50.
Sorry if some of my ramblings are repeated from other posts, fuzzy brain syndrome (side effect). Sorry for calling a baby a parasite, hope not to offend anyone.
More soon…
Waiting for Neptune – Linda Ravenscroft
While going through the Heaven and Earth designs on Pintrest I realised I had bought a kit of one of the pictures, at one of the Olympia Cross Stitch shows I’m fairly sure, that much like the Scarlet Wizard, I saw it one year and bought it the following year.
As you can see it is one of those sort your own thread kits, as I am a DMC stitcher, it is cheaper for me to buy the full kit rather than the pattern and floss. Also unfortunately as with the Scarlet Wizard, it encourages you to buy, buy, buy. Both kits are now discontinued, looking at my stash, I have a few discontinued kits I also have a couple of Teresa Wentzler kits
The Fortunate Traveller and the Storyteller, I do have a lot of Teresa Wentzler patterns, I went through a phase of buying them, I do like me a good Dragon picture, but also a lot of them are now discontinued – not helping with the stash busting.
I did sell a couple of the larger Mirabilia patterns on eBay just before Christmas, I have a few of the Pixie Couture patterns
and I did buy Moon Flower, though that was before we had the results of the biopsy. This is my problem, I’m looking through my stash and thinking I could start this one next.
I have found two more started WIPs
Let’s talk about jeans pockets…..
Hi, since starting steroids in July I have increased 2 dress sizes and added 2 stone to my weight, it is very easy to blame the steroids and say the weight gain is the fault of the steroid side effects, increased hunger, reduced self control the fact that only chocolate tastes right, it is the steroids fault 🙂
I have been on eBay buying new larger jeans, refusing to believe that my weight will not get back to normal after coming off the treatment and not wanting to spend £40-£50 on new jeans that I’ll only wear for a couple of months.
In more ways than one I am a Fat Face girl, my sister likes All Saints, which I didn’t realise was more than the 1990s Girl Band. If you like grey go to All Saints, if you want more colour in your wardrobe Fat Face is the place to go.
I now have several pairs of Fat Face Jeans and Shirts for a lot less than I would have paid for new, there is a problem with is as in depending on how old the jeans are depends on waist sizing, the older they are the bigger a size 12 is. The advantage is that I like flares/ boot cut legs which don’t appear to be in fashion at the moment, I like to be comfortable, slim boot cut doesn’t do it for me. The fact that the main things that go are the hems, at 5ft 2in I always have to shorten the legs any way.
If you shorten Jeans don’t do it by hand. Check to see how it was done originally and try to copy it using a sewing machine. What I usually do is cut off the original hem then restitch with a similar colour top stitching thread. I always hem long so as I can wear with trainers, boots or shoes. While hemming the last lot of jeans, I noticed Fat Face had some interesting pocket details.
Apparently both back pockets don’t have to be the same
You can come up with new and interesting shapes to cut the front pockets.
Use some nice fabric for the pocket bags and inside waist band.
The Denim that they use isn’t as good quality that the price might suggest. In this sewing world where making your own jeans has become very popular, you could do worse than go to Fat Face for inspiration, although the Denim isn’t the best, the Jumpers and cardigans are top notch.
First Finish of 2018
Hello, this is my first finish of 2018 my Somebunny to Love Ballerina, August 2014 The World of Cross Stitching, with my Stash Busting hat on I swapped out a couple of the speciality threads, for the Gold star on the wand I used Krenick treasure braid doubled instead of E3821 and instead of S211 which is a Satin thread I used plain 211 which is a light mauve with two strands of Blending Filament. I am very pleased with the results.
Radiotherapy
I’m two thirds through my Radiotherapy/chemotherapy 6 week treatment, I have been feeling better than I did before I started the treatment, I hadn’t experienced any of the side effects up until last week when my hair started coming out in handfuls, I expected it to start falling out slowly, not in what seems like one day, I think it has gone mainly from the top half of my scalp, I have to work out where the best place to put the new parting so I can have a major comb over 🙂 , I’m also starting to feel more tired, and I’m fairly sure that I am getting some brain swelling which is to also be expected. I feel better after the couple of days off from the radiotherapy, today I left the bench with a slight headache. I have had my weekly blood tests and they have all been fine. At this moment I’ve had 22 treatments 8 to go.
I have put on rather a lot of weight 1 1/2 stone half of which is the medication the other in eating too much, which can also be blamed on the medication which makes you extra hungry an it also forgets to tell you when you are full up, also it changes what you fancy eating, I usually go for savoury food and sour sweets, where as at the moment, it is cream, chocolate, biscuits and deserts, the fact that it is Christmas doesn’t help, we have lots of chocolate and cake about the house.
Both Simon and I are going to try to eat better this week I’m hoping some of the weight will come off, though obviously with the amount hair I’ve lost I expect to weigh a bit less. 🙂
Itch to stitch – Patternsy Printing
Just before Christmas I received an email from Kennis Wong about having the large-format PDFs printed by Patternsy, I thought I would try it out as I had been looking at printing. If Kennis wanted to do the research for me I thought I would give it a try.
It was quite straight forward, you login with a gmail account so that you can upload the patterns to google docs, then you fill out a form giving them your name, email address and address. Once you have done this Patternsy emailed me to ask what cup size I wanted printed as it will make the printing cheaper, once I answered this question, they came back with an invoice. Which I paid using Paypal, for the four patterns I decided to have printed which cost £21.74 in total, I had printed Bonn, Chai, Idyllwild and Mila.
After I paid it took only a couple of days for my printing to arrive, the paper is slightly heavier than tissue paper 24gsm better than normal printer paper.
For some reason I had expected it to come in a tube, but that could be because I expected it to be a heavier paper, they came in an A5 envelope, folded up like a purchased pattern. I will be quite happy to use this service again with other patterns.
cross stitch Christmas
I received a couple of cross stitch kits for Christmas and a cross stitch book, all Michael Powell.
I am coming along quite nicely with my existing cross stitch, the Scarlet Wizard is finally progressing, I have gridded most of the remaining fabric to make it easier to work out where to stitch.
The Secret Garden 1 has come along quite nicely. The bottom two inches are complete apart from the back stitching which will make the picture pop.
I also have a small picture that I spotted in The World of Cross Stitching started that I am stitching on a hoop, which means I can take it to the Hospital with me.
The colours aren’t as purple in real life as they are in in the magazine, which as you can see on the stitching are more of a pinky colour.
I’ve been listening to audio books while I’m stitching as at the moment I can either stitch or watch TV not both. While I was in hospital I started listening to the psi/changeling series written by Nalini Singh, performed by Angela Dawe, which are brilliant, I am now up to book 10, I have already read the books. I prefer Angela Dawe to Justine Eyre who narrates the Archangel series, I find her a bit harsh.
I recommend Audible especially if you buy kindle books, if you are smart you can get the most for your money. Also the audible app for the iPhone is great, it has a sleep function on it, so if you fall asleep while listening to know there is only a certain amount of time you need to go back.
Musings of a Craft Enthusiast 